Good morning everyone,

Happy Thursday! You’re almost there so keep pushing!

For our main course today, we’ll be inviting Friedrich Nietzsche to the table to discuss his existential nihilism and its impact on meaning. Putting what we learn into practice, we’re going to do a thought exercise called the Meaning Check. Wrapping up with our Book Nook, we’re going to crack open Nietzsche’s The Gay Science.

Have a seat, Thought Breakfast is served!

Friedrich Nietzsche is most famous for his assertion that “God is dead.” This strikes readers at first, but consider it differently. What it actually represents is a collapse of inherited moral authority (that once oriented Western life). Traditions that carried over centuries once gave meaning were still being practiced, though no longer believed in. You know how people will do the most anti-Christian things on Saturday and then still go to Church on Sunday. The hypocrisy signifies the loss of inherent moral authority.

So Nietzsche’s main premise is that inherent moral authority collapses, but meaning doesn’t. This is nihilism; the space between collapsed meanings and new ones. Most people think that nihilism is just the idea that “nothing matters,” but it’s more like “nothing feels justified.” Often considered the most famous nihilist, Nietzsche actually feared this school of thought. He would say that it leads to cynicism, passivity, resentment, and escapism.

Now when inherited meaning collapses, most people won’t do the internal work to create it for themselves, they’ll avoid the task altogether. They hold on to old beliefs out of habit, and retreat into comfort or distraction. But retreating as a result of nihilistic awakening is in no way a solution, it’s a way to avoid responsibility for creating meaning (which is what this whole week has been about).

In comes Nietzsche’s “will to power.” This is what he calls a fundamental drive for expansion and self-overcoming, not just for survival. Now, expansion and self-overcoming isn’t about control, but it’s the willingness to shape one’s life intentionally. Meaning isn’t discovered; it’s lived into existence.

Nietzsche offers absolutely no comfort, certainty, or validation when it comes to his philosophy. A meaningful life isn’t explained, it’s carried. Freedom, as we talked about yesterday, turns into weight and not relief. What essentially matters is what you can stand behind even when it costs you. This is the idea that inspired one of Nietzsche’s most famous quotes: “He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.”

Without inherent meaning, we stop asking “What should I believe?” and we start asking “What am I willing to take responsibility for?”

Meaning, then, appears where responsibility is accepted. Again, not choosing is still a choice. And it shapes life just the same.

Take a moment to reflect honestly.

Ask yourself:

Let the answers sit for a bit. Nietzsche doesn’t want you to destroy meaning, but he’s asking whether you’ve ever truly chosen it.

“God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatest of this dead too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?” — Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, §125

Again, “God is dead” is not a mockery of faith but a diagnosis that inherent meaning has collapsed among humanity. The loss of that meaning leaves us with responsibility, not freedom. We killed the meaning, but still want comfort. We want values without creating them. Individual meaning now demands authorship of itself. Rather than obeying a higher authority, we are responsible for writing the meaning in our lives.

Munch on that for today. Remember, Nietzsche’s ideas are vast, complex, and shaped by a long philosophical lineage. Trying to hold them inside a five-to-seven minute morning read can only ever be a kind of aphorism. Still, I think we did justice to the spirit of his thought. Come on back tomorrow as we wrap up our week of existentialism with another steaming hot plate of Thought Breakfast!

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Remember to stay mindful, smell the flowers, and take it easy.

Chef Ricky - Thought Breakfast